The battle heats start on August 27 at Kyneton town hall. Drummer Dan Evans, 19, and four schoolmates formed their Trentham-based band for last year’s competition, but were pipped at the post in the finals.

“We lost by one point last year,” he said.

“We thought we’d come back this year and have another go.”

Another mate coined the phrase “this is prison” as a joke for when bad things happened.

Evans describes their music as progressive metal.

“We’ve written 10 songs but we’ve only got 30 minutes so we’ll have to choose which ones to perform.”